Subject: Re: What is the Cause of Time Dilation?
From: throopw@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 18:18:05 GMT
: bjon@ix.netcom.com (Brian Jones)
: for two spacelike event, no clock can read the proper time - and it's
: because the clock cannot travel fast enough to go from one event to
: the other.
True. Irrelevant, but true.
:: A clock always ticks off the proper time along its worldline.
:: Coordinate time of events along that worldline is what is cobbled
:: together by synchronizing distant clocks. That's why the fact that
:: the spacetime interval corresponds to the proper time is so
:: important; it's what clocks really do along their worldlines.
:: Coordinate times are human artifacts, and thus appropriately
:: observer-dependent.
::
:: None of this, of course, implies any need for a clock to have an
:: observer-independent velocity.
: I have never seen a world line nor a clock traversing one.
You've also never seen a line, nor a straightedge scribing one.
Because a line (like a worldline) is an abstract, and doesn't exist
in the real world. Clocks, however, behave as the abstract model does.
And regardless of bjon being confused over abstracts vs concretes, or
whatever it is he's on about this time, none of this implies any need
for a clock to have an observer-independent velocity.
--
Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
throopw@cisco.com
Subject: Re: Diffusion-equation -PLEASE HELP !
From: breed@HARLIE.ee.cornell.edu (Bryan W. Reed)
Date: 14 Nov 1996 18:00:48 GMT
In article <56eqa3$a88_002@tuwien.ac.at>,
godzilla wrote:
>Hi !
>i have a simple (?) problem concerning the diffusion-equation.
>assuming one releases a at (x,t)=(0,0) in a medium (in one dimension) then the
>probability of finding it between x and x+dx at time t is
>w(x,t)dx = 1/Sqrt(4*Pi*D*t)*Exp(-x^2/(4*D*t)) where D is the
>diffusion-constant. what i can not understand is why the mass of the particle
>does not occur in the formula (in fact, i understand it in a mathematical
>sense since i understand various derivations of w(x,t)) but i can't 'imagine'
>how the diffusion can be independent of the particle's mass.
>thanks in advance for any help
>godzilla
All the effects of mass, temperature, etc. are taken up in the diffusion
constant D. D varies considerably according to kind of particle, medium,
and temperature. The mass is in there, but it's not explicit in the
final equation.
Have fun,
breed
Subject: Re: Ground
From: altavoz
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 11:30:29 -0800
bikerbabe in black leather wrote:
>
> In article <5665u7$3pu@Nntp1.mcs.net>, Tommy E. wrote:
> >
> >>From: DC, 75277.3335@CompuServe.COM
> >
> >>>What completes the grounding circuit in an electrical system?
> >>Let's say a refrigerator shorts and the current goes to ground (thus
> >>protecting anyone touching the refrigerator).
> >>The current goes through a wire down to metal pipe down to the earth
> >>itself, but how does it come back from the soil in the back or front
> >>yard to complete the circuit to the refrigerator in the house?
> >>Thanks for help and info.
>
> To clear up a bit of a misnomer, ground has several meanings. In
> general it's used to indicate something that is at zero volts with
> respect to a source. The earth ground is used mainly for protection
> from lightening or similarly induced voltages, and is used to ensure
> that all wires into a house are at the same ground voltage with
> respect to each other. This includes phone lines and cable.
>
>
>
> >
> >The problem, as you might imagine, is when for some reason, say defective
> >wiring, you have a high resistance ground connection. In this case, the
> >protective overcurrent device will not trip, leaving the circuit hot and
> >the frame of the device at an energized, possibly dangerous potential.
> >If you suspect that you have a high resistance ground, your installation
> >should be immediately checked by a qualified electrician.
>
> This is also one of the reasons for ground-fault interrupted circuits.
> These can either be at the outlet or an entire circuit, and are
> designed to sense when there is a voltage with respect to ground that
> may not be high enough to trip a regular breaker. altavoz: Any normal load will cause a volt diff to appear from nuet to
bare(gnd). It's not the volt diff ( nuet to bare) that fires a GFI ,
its a diff in currents between nuet and hot . I used to think it was
bare current that fired the GFI but was corrected . Its a matter of where
you measure it cause the diff nuet to hot is equal to the bare current .
Anytime a circuit
> is to be used in a bathroom, basement, kitchen near a sink, garage
> or similar outbuilding, or outdoor circuits, a GFI should be used.
>
> --
> Anmar Mirza # Chief of Tranquility #How many of our #I'm a cheap
> EMT-D # Base, Lawrence Co.,IN #Bretheren die for#date, but an
> N9ISY (tech) # Somewhere out on the #every glass of V8#expensive
> EOL DoD#1147 # Mirza Ranch.C'mon over#Juice?. TBTW #10 #pet.
--
______End of text from altavoz___________
Subject: Re: Cryonics bafflegab? (was re: organic structures of consciousness)
From: Paul Brown
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:32:23 -0800
Joseph Strout wrote:
>
> This has been done many times; it's called "cryobiology". Human embryos,
> various tissues, cells. I personally have a few million cells (brain
> cells, no less) in liquid nitrogen just across the room. When I need
> some, I just thaw them out, feed them properly, and they're just fine.
>
You're talking about a tissue sample, try it with a fully intact human
brain.
> Your remark about "bursting them" indicates that you've done very little
> research on the topic. It's a myth that freezing cells causes them to
> burst; ice crystals form first outside the cells. This changes the
> osmotic balance, drawing water out of the cells; so what really happens is
> that cells are dehydrated, not burst.
I'm guessing that you think all that intercellular ice will not cause
some sort of damage to that human brain.
> Moreover, there are cryoprotectants which can inhibit the formation of ice
> crystals and instead for vitreous (glassy) ice. This is the focus of most
> cryobiology research aimed at freezing larger tissues.
How do they deliver this protectant? What is its structure? No one that
I ask seems to know. It must be some sort of alchemical elixir.
> We don't have to be able to freeze and revive whole humans today. We only
> have to freeze them. The nice thing about freezing is that it *stops* all
> degradation. Once frozen, the patient can wait as long as necessary for
> the appropriate revival technology to be developed, which may be in about
> 50-100 years, depending on who you ask.
Why don't I just wait until they can unearth my decayed remains and
clone me by using what ever is left of my DNA. Then, through some as yet
undicovered science, recreate all my memories and my personality. Its
much easier and cheaper this way.
Besides whats the difference between a few hundred or a few thousand
years when you're dead.
>
> To make it easier on the doctors of the future, and more likely to work
> for us, we naturally want to do as little damage as possible. This is why
> we want to limit ice crystal damage, dehydration, and cryoprotectant
> toxicity. But anything which stops the death & degradation process is
> better than letting it continue till you're nothing but dust. (By
> "better" I mean more likely to give future doctors enough to work with to
> restore you to health.)
>
But future doctors will be able to do anything, even with dust, right?
> And who knows what techniques medicine might use in the future? They
> might not even use biological cells anymore; see
>
> http://sunsite.unc.edu/~jstrout/uploading/
>
> for one alternative.
>
> So I agree with the original poster above -- if you have any logical or
> scientific reasons why cryonics can't work, let's hear 'em. I've been
> looking into it for about three years now, and I'm just about ready to
> sign up.
Stay cool!
--
Paul
---------------------------------------------------
All thoughts and opinions in this message are mine.
They cannot and should not be attributed to my
employer or any other entity, real or imagined.
---------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cryonics bafflegab? (was re: organic structures of consciousness)
From: Paul Brown
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:21:48 -0800
Randy wrote:
>
> What about those kids they have pulled from wintry lakes, cold and
> blue from many minutes under the water? They have no life signs, no
> brain waves, no heart beat, their body temps were far below normal.
> I guess they're just lucky you weren't around to make that
> "life-and-death decision of whether or not to proceed with radical
> life-saving procedures.
>
There is a big difference between very cold and FROZEN. Water expands
when it freezes (contracts when the temperature drops). When the water
expands it disrupts the membrane of each and every cell in the frozen
mass (give or take a couple). (This is also called frost bite.)
I have asked cryonics people how they prevent this cellular disruption
upon freezing. The answer I got was that the people preaching cryonics
to me were not scientists and did not know. (Imagine their shock when
they found out that they were talking to a scientist.) But they assured
me that they do have a crack team of scientists that know what they're
doing.
Try freezing a head of lettuce for a couple of days and then thawing it
out. That gooey mess of green slime is just about what those frozen
human heads will look like when they're thawed.
>
> What do you mean by dead? If you stopped breathing 100 years ago, you
> were "dead." If I happen to stop breathing on the operating table, Mr.
> Hempfling, I truly hope my anesthesiologist does not abide by that
> 100-year-old definition of death.
> Is 1996 the year of the apex of medicine and science?
>
When just about every cell in your body has burst because someone froze
all the water in your body . . . YOU ARE DEAD!
Come to think of it, if you do not agree with the current medical
definition of dead, and you freeze someone who is not really dead
(destoying most of the cells in his body), are you not guilty of murder?
> There's only one way to prove or disprove the cryonics question:
> conduct an experiment; freeze a bunch of people with the least
> damaging methods possible, invest the money they have provided
> in a conservative fashion; get some people who are fascinated with the
> possibilities of cryonics to watch over and maintain them, and we
> shall see what happens. Until such time as sciencehas seriously tried
> to revive them, you cannot say that cryonics will or will not work.
Unless you can find a way to sufficiently solubilize the cell membrane
so that it does not burst upon freezing (which is done on a regular
basis with bacteria), it won't work. Science has already disproved it.
Some people feel that everything will work unless specifically
disproven. ANYTHING that is hot WILL BURN YOU. If the poker is glowing
red, I don't need to shove it in my eye to know that it will harm me!
If, on the other hand, the cryonisists have the magical elixir of
cellular coherence, please post what this is and let science progress.
>
> Are you saying that cryonics companies are somehow profiting?
> I highly doubt that.
>
Liquid nitrogen is cheaper than beer (and I'm talkin' Bud here)! The
dewars that they keep the heads in aren't too expensive either. They are
making a killing. And they're non-profit to boot! The money just keeps
rolling in . . . TAX FREE!
>
> What a morbid and fatalistic attitude.
>
Just realistic. Living forever would get kinda boring after the first
few millenia.
--
Paul
---------------------------------------------------
All thoughts and opinions in this message are mine.
They cannot and should not be attributed to my
employer or any other entity, real or imagined.
---------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cryonics bafflegab? (was re: organic structures of consciousness)
From: 6500ur@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (J. Borrowdale)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:22:29 -0800
In article <56ctri$lus@ren.cei.net>, lkh@mail.cei.net wrote:
}ricka@praline.no.neosoft.com (RHA) enunciated:
}
}>In article <56bhid$eng@ren.cei.net>,
}>Lee Kent Hempfling wrote:
}>[deleted]
}>>In reference to the above inquiry:
}>>
}>>For starters:
}>>1) Cells damage... no reboot possible
Ever heard of Nanotech? IBM recently made a nanotech abacus. What do you
think they'll be doing in two or three hundred years? It's also possible
that experiments with fluid replacements and protectants could minimize
this damage.
}>>2) ALL tests to date have been with LIVE animals
}>>..freeze a live creature and it tends to remain alive... no duh! For
}>>awhile.......hmmmmm
Ever heard of sperm banks? There was a recent battle over some viable
fertilized eggs which were *years* old. There was also a recent case where
an elderly woman was intentionally put into cardiac arrest after her body
temperature was lowered so a blood cut in her brain could be savely
operated on. After the operation (which took several hours), they raised
her body temperature, restarted her heart, and she was as good as new. And
haven't there been experiments done on dogs and goats where they have been
dead for two or three hours and revived with no apparent ill effects?
}>>3) ALL scams... I mean scientific cryonic freezings have been done
}>> on DEAD humans. LIFE IS NOT THERE TO REBOOT ON THAW!
You seem to have a pre-scientific understanding of the word "life" as some
mysterious vital force or energy. Without this dubious presupposition,
there is nothing absurd about reviving a properly preserved dead organism.
}>> (sorry had to put the caps in to make the original poster happy)
}>>4) Example: Freeze a computer. Unfreeze it. What do you have? A cold
}>> computer. But if there was no programming in it when it was frozen
}>>there won't be any in it when it is thawed. Magic is not a reality
}>>gang.
I'd say death is more like having your hard drive crash. With the proper
tools, you can repair the damage and power it back up again, sometimes with
no loss of data.
}>>5) BUT....(sorry I did it again)... scams and money making frauds
}>>_are_ a reality. And what better way to play the fraud than on a
}>>subject that can not be refuted with fact. +Maybe+ +someday+ +perhaps+
}>>science will +find+ a way to +bring the dead back to life+........
}>>this is playing on the same crud cults have played on for centuries.
}>>Taking advantage of the poor and about to be dead. Don't give them
}>>hope of an afterlife...... give them hope of anotherlife. Bull.
}>>F) (just checking to see if you're still awake) Cryonics is science
}>>being used as a replacement for cult religion so scam artists can rule
}>>the pulpit again.....
Many scientificly accepting methods are based on extrapolation of data.
Radioactive dating, for instance, takes the present rate of decay of
certain isotopes of certain elements, assumes that it is a constant, and
uses it to estimate the age of geological formations, fossils, and human
artefacts.
If we look at what science as a whole has accomplished in just the last 50
years, we can look at the rate of growth in our knowledge expertise and
extrapolate about what we will be able to do in the future. Our knowledge,
rather than increasing at a slow, constant speed, regularly doubles, and
the time it takes to double is getting smaller and smaller. In the early
40s putting a man on the moon, organ transplantation, nuclear power plants,
a computer that will fit into a single room, and genetic engineering were
science-fiction. Now they are science fact. Don't you think it's rather
myopic to think you know for a fact what science will *not* be able to
accomplish in another 50 years? You sound like naysayers of the past, such
as the man who said that if God had meant Man to fly, he would have given
him wings.
Ray Bradbury remembers being at a party one night and talking to people who
scoffed at the idea of putting a man on the moon. He took down their phone
numbers and on the night of the landing, many years later, he called each
of them up and said "Stupid Son of Bitch!" Unfortunately, you are unlikely
to hear these words from any revived cryonicist, for you will in all
likelihood be a pile of bones or ashes by that time.
}>>G) Freeze an organ and the organ will be damaged. COOL it and it will
}>>be preserved. Now.... freeze a head and hope it will grow another body
}>>or perhaps be put on another body or perhaps, who knows what else is
}>>told to the poor and bewildered rich folk who can't take it with them
}>>so they opt to leave them with it.......but you know something?
}>>A scam is a scam is a scam. The sad part is that many otherwise
}>>intelligent people will fall for a deception not because they KNOW it
}>>to be a possibility but because it supports their HOPES.
Now this isn't a very charitable reconstruction of the cryonicst's
argument. Freeze a head and hope it will grown another body indeed.
The problem isn't with freezing per se, but with the formation of ice
crystals on the outside of the cell, causing an osmotic imbalence and cell
dehydration; you don't have these problems with you freeze small groups of
cells. This is a particular, defined scientific problem. There is every
reason to expect a breakthrough some time in the future to solve it with
cryoprotectants which prevnt the formation of ice and are not toxic to the
brain or eventually with molecular nanotechnology.
}>>Fire away!
Direct hit. You seem to be taking on water--I'd suggest you abandon ship
while there's still time ;-)
Life is something I cherish. I will not
}toy with it. I will not proclaim that I can somehow win over it. Life
}ends. And when it does there is nothing anyone can do about it.
}Holding out hope for a scientific maybe is absolutely ridiculous in
}the light that when the life is gone, son, it is gone.
Taking a rational gamble when there is no alternative is not ridiculous.
Even if the odds are bad, it's still the only alternative.If you really
"cherish" life as you claim, you'd be interested.
I find more
}credence in an afterlife potential in a spiritual manner than I do in
}a physical manner. I can not prove that a spirit life is not me.
This say something about your ability to rationally evaluate evidence. You
imply cryonicist naive and gullible and yet you lend credence to an
invisible force within you that lives after your body dies simply because
you can't *disprove* it?? Why aren't you as charitable with cryonicts?
I can
}prove that a physical life is not alive when it is dead.
This sentence is a semantic mess. On certain criterions of alive and dead
you can prove an organism is one or the other, but you can not prove that
once an arganism is dead that it cannot be revived unless you have some
evidence to support this claim. Your statement above appears to be similar
in form to the statement, "I can prove a bachelor can not be married." It
is true by definition that a bachelor is not married. But if a particular
person is a bachelor at one time, this doesn't mean he can never be married
at some future time. You'd need some evidence to show why he can never be
married, such as that he is an incredible bore no woman would tolerate, or
is gay (and committed to living in a place where there are no gay
marriages), etc.
But
}an animate matter construct can be dead, it just can not be alive
}again. The matter does not cease to exist the life does.
Again, you seem to have an unscientific definiton of "life." Life is a
process. It can be arrested and restarted in a laboratory in animals. It
can be brought back to drowning victims or people who have had heart
attacks with CPR.
}I hate to break the news to you but death is not a choice. Face it.
}YOU are going to die and nothing you can do will change that. Nothing
}you can do, nor pay for, can bring you back in a physical body when
}there is no life inside it.
Most of your "criticism" seems to consist of this kind of grandstanding and
naysaying. Making strong assertions is not a substitute for evidence and
argument. And you have this funny idea about what "life" is. Does the word
"homonculus" mean anything to you?
}But far be it for me, or any other attempt at logic to stand in the
}way of a person's hope. One can place hope in the position of
}potential or one can place hope in the position of control. If you can
}control it then it is not hope. It is hype.
The fact that one *hopes* for x does is make the belief that x will occur
irrational or thereby render x implausible. Here is a famous
counter-example to this kind of argument brought against Feuerbach: I am
ill and experiencing a night of pain. I hope for dawn to come at which time
I know my pain will be over. The fact that I *hope* for the dawn is not
proof that dawn will not come.
Once that power source is removed from the living structure
}it is gone. You, nor anyone else, can turn it back on when IT IS NOT
}THERE to be turned on.
Here's that "life as invisible power source" belief again.
}One can not change reality to fit one's hopes. One can change one's
}hopes to fit reality. But there is no money in it.
There's lots of money in administering chemotherapy, bone marrow
transplants, and brain surgery, but it doesn't follow that these treatments
never help anyone.
--
Jeffrey Borrowdale
Subject: Re: what Newton thought
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 19:57:00 GMT
In article <56f2ia$4dt@bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au>, davidcs@psy.uq.edu.au (David Smyth) writes:
>In article , meron@cars3.uchicago.edu says...
>>
>>Not really. Motion which is uniform relative to some reference frame,
>>is also uniform relative to any reference frame moving at constant
>>velocity relative to the first one. That's the whole point of
>>inertail frames. So, no absolute space, only an absolute class of
>>inertial frames. And I don't see that the existance of such class
>>implies the existance of a single "master inertial frame" such that
>>all the other refer to it.
>>
>The minute you mention the phrase "inertial reference frame" this
>is the same as saying "a reference frame moving with uniform motion", true?
No, it is not true. This only defines the relationship of one
inertial reference frame to another, but not the concept of inertial
frame. The concept can be defined as "An inertial frame is one where
any body initially at rest remains at rest". So, you can ask "how do
I prove that such frames even exists?" The answer is "you don't, it
is a postulate (i.e. an axiom) of classical mechanics that inertial
frames exist. Now, once you accept the postulate then you can show
that if there is an inertial frame, any frame moving relative to it at
constant velocity is also an inertial frame.
The important thing is that the inertial frame definition must come
before you talk about motion, since motion is only defined relative to
a reference frame.
>You can't define uniform motion by referencing it to a frame moving with
>uniform motion either directly or indirectly. This is an obvious
>circularity.
Precisely. That's the reason for the above.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: status of Podkletnov gravity-shield effect?
From: Joseph Strout
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 11:46:44 -0800
There was a recent buzz of excitement about a so-called "anti-gravity"
effect found by Finnish researcher E. Podkletnov et al., which even found
its way into Science magazine a couple weeks ago.
Searching for the latest, I found that this isn't new at all:
Podkletnov, E.; Nieminen, R.
A possibility of gravitational force shielding by bulk YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub
3/O/sub 7-x/ superconductor.
Physica C, 10 Dec. 1992, vol.203, (no.3-4):441-4.
But I can't find anything more recent than that. I had heard that NASA
and the University of Alabama were going to attempt a replication. Any
news on this? The negative result probably won't get published, except
perhaps as a letter to the editor, but it's important enough that I hope
they'll make some sort of announcement.
Any info you have would be greatly appreciated.
,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Department of Neuroscience, UCSD |
| jstrout@ucsd.edu http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/ |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'
Subject: Re: The Physics of Absolute Motion
From: savainl@pacificnet.net (Louis Savain)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 20:23:37 GMT
In article <56fp4q$55s@starman.rsn.hp.com>, schumach@convex.com
(Richard A. Schumacher) wrote:
>
>>> I do not agree with any of the concepts of absolute motion,
>>>absolute space, aether or E-Matrix or any other name, or absolute
>>>velocity, but the number of threads and number of responses gives
>>>[...] others more incentive to continue beating a tired horse.
>
>>Well, amen, but should we let nonsense go unchallenged, even
>>if it is the same tired old stuff repeated endlessly?
>
>The answer must be "no". There's no point in trying to
>change the crank's opinion. The point is to defend the
>idea that there is an objective reality, and that truths
>about it cannot be decided by popularity contests or shouting
>matches.
Is this why you apparently love to shout the word "crank" at every
occasion? So you can get at the truth? Cool dude! Now I know where
*not* to go to get the truth.
Best regards,
Louis Savain
"O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason." W.S.
Subject: Re: The Physics of Absolute Motion
From: Richard Mentock
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 15:23:42 -0500
Richard A. Schumacher wrote:
>
> >> I do not agree with any of the concepts of absolute motion,
> >>absolute space, aether or E-Matrix or any other name, or absolute
> >>velocity, but the number of threads and number of responses gives
> >>[...] others more incentive to continue beating a tired horse.
>
> >Well, amen, but should we let nonsense go unchallenged, even
> >if it is the same tired old stuff repeated endlessly?
>
> The answer must be "no". There's no point in trying to
> change the crank's opinion. The point is to defend the
> idea that there is an objective reality, and that truths
> about it cannot be decided by popularity contests or shouting
> matches.
The answer should be "OK, if you want to." Many of the responses are
not from the same people. They are from folks who are testing their own
understanding of the basic issues. It is clear from history that
advances within physics can come by clarifying subtle points of
philosophy. Is there an objective reality? Now, there is an issue for
cranks. I would side with you that there *is* in fact, but I will
continue to insist, even shout, that we don't yet know what the details
of that objective reality are. I won't shout down your opinions but I
will defend my right and others rights to have and express our opinions.
Ignore them at your own risk.
--
D.
mentock@mindspring.com
http://www.mindspring.com/~mentock/index.htm
Subject: Re: Cryonics bafflegab? (was re: organic structures of consciousness)
From: lkh@mail.cei.net (Lee Kent Hempfling)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 20:20:05 GMT
6500ur@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (J. Borrowdale) enunciated:
And all the other cryobabbleites:
The only arguments put forth for the potential of reviving dead tissue
to no longer be dead is that
A: How dare any one claim life may actually be something
other than the tissue.
B: How dare anyone use logic to refute stupidity
when the logic is not stupid. Only blind belief in "oh how
great we shall be when science conquers everything"
hogwash.
C: and more psychobabble in a cold state.
It is interesting to note that what is being defended here is not what
was put forth but what is perceived to be put forth. All of the energy
used sar far in these arguments has raised one very important issue,
regardless of all of the drivle......
Define life.
Now.... the statement that life may be something other than the cell
structure is defended by saying how dare I assume life may be
something other than the cell structure. How ridiculous. How lame. How
totally unscientific. Fitting of alt.bogus.defense
The arguments put forth imply that life may indeed be only the cell
structure. Not something inside the cell structure. I can not prove
one way or the other. But I can defy anyone to turn a rock into
something with life.
All of the experiments done to date with so called dead animals has
resulted in nothing more than the illusion of death, being called
death to fit the desired outcome of the experiments. THAT is very bad
science.
People are so insecure in their current life that they insist on
having the chance to have another one. They defend, as have all of the
defenses so far in this thread, the right to keep on being insecure
and the right to believe in science. They believe in the power of the
almighty science. They believe in the power of the all mighty
observational illusions of man. The same people who , no doubt,
disbelieve and ridicule and assail and attack those who believe in the
all might power of a god. What's the difference? One believes in
something they can not see in hopes it will be something that is real,
the other believes in something that is real in hopes of it becoming
something they can not see. Ridiculous.
Frogs being frozen in winter revive. No duh! They are NOT frozen to
the depths of cryonics. If there were to be their cell structure would
be just as punctured by those (face it facts are facts) disgusting ice
crystals that seem to form those (oh forgive me for inserting anything
remotely resembling fact here) sharp pointed angles that have a
digusting habit of puncturing everything they poke into. The human
being is overwhelmingly made of water. You can remove the blood and
replace it with anti-freeze and dehydrate the whole thing in a Ronco
dehydrater and get Huma-Jerky if you like but neither way is going to
lay the ground to put life into the jerk who fell for it.
Interesting that this thread falls into sci.physics. It belongs in
alt.mythical.stupidity or at least should be directed to some form of
discussion besides....."haven't you heard of the word"...or "how
about" or any other straw man myth to support a belief system based in
a deceptive guess.
>In article <56ctri$lus@ren.cei.net>, lkh@mail.cei.net wrote:
>}ricka@praline.no.neosoft.com (RHA) enunciated:
>}
>}>In article <56bhid$eng@ren.cei.net>,
>}>Lee Kent Hempfling wrote:
>}>[deleted]
>}>>In reference to the above inquiry:
>}>>
>}>>For starters:
>}>>1) Cells damage... no reboot possible
>Ever heard of Nanotech? IBM recently made a nanotech abacus. What do you
>think they'll be doing in two or three hundred years? It's also possible
>that experiments with fluid replacements and protectants could minimize
>this damage.
Oh whoopy do.... IBM makes a teeny weeny thing. What in the world has
that got to do with that teeny weeny thing getting to a cell that has
been destroyed? Fluid replacement? Grow up! Fluid IN and around cell
structure is the problem not the stuff that resides in the veins or
the stuff that fills the area around the brain or the stuff that fills
the blatter. Protectants minimizing damage? What are you talking
about? Minimizing? If there is ANY damage the being will be DAMAGED.
All it would take is ONE neuron in ONE pathway to destroy the pathway.
Out of billions of neurons how many ONE neurons damaged possibilities
is worth the risk?
>}>>2) ALL tests to date have been with LIVE animals
>}>>..freeze a live creature and it tends to remain alive... no duh! For
>}>>awhile.......hmmmmm
>Ever heard of sperm banks? There was a recent battle over some viable
>fertilized eggs which were *years* old. There was also a recent case where
>an elderly woman was intentionally put into cardiac arrest after her body
>temperature was lowered so a blood cut in her brain could be savely
>operated on. After the operation (which took several hours), they raised
>her body temperature, restarted her heart, and she was as good as new. And
>haven't there been experiments done on dogs and goats where they have been
>dead for two or three hours and revived with no apparent ill effects?
"ever heard of"...... good grief..... sperm banks.....
cryonic freezing is NOT the same thing as lowering a body temperature
of a LIVE person. The experiments on animals I already mentioned...
You're not listening.. Of course why should you? You might find out
you've been the victim of a scam. That would be worse that leaning
anyhing. People have a wonderful tendence to overly desire to retain
their ignorance as it might tend to question their intellect for
having become a victim in the first place. And the animals referred
to were NOT dead when they were "frozen". Whoops... there goes that
horrible, how dare he mention life as something other than the meer
cell structure... good grief.... people,... wake up.
>}>>3) ALL scams... I mean scientific cryonic freezings have been done
>}>> on DEAD humans. LIFE IS NOT THERE TO REBOOT ON THAW!
>You seem to have a pre-scientific understanding of the word "life" as some
>mysterious vital force or energy. Without this dubious presupposition,
>there is nothing absurd about reviving a properly preserved dead organism.
Whoa.... I seem to have ? What in the world do you think all the
stupidity about life being only the cell structure is? You fail to
defend a position by attacking the opposite. You can not defend the
position that life is nothing other than the cell structure so you
attack the person who tries to point it out. Intellect. Use more of
it.
>}>> (sorry had to put the caps in to make the original poster happy)
>}>>4) Example: Freeze a computer. Unfreeze it. What do you have? A cold
>}>> computer. But if there was no programming in it when it was frozen
>}>>there won't be any in it when it is thawed. Magic is not a reality
>}>>gang.
>I'd say death is more like having your hard drive crash. With the proper
>tools, you can repair the damage and power it back up again, sometimes with
>no loss of data.
Having your hard drive crash? That is stupid. A computer without a
hard drive is just like a computer with a hard drive. WHat are you
talking about? Life should be the brain's memories? Come now. You do
not power up a hard drive. You power up a computer that uses the hard
drive. WIthout one it is still a computer. You have to do better than
that.
>}>>5) BUT....(sorry I did it again)... scams and money making frauds
>}>>_are_ a reality. And what better way to play the fraud than on a
>}>>subject that can not be refuted with fact. +Maybe+ +someday+ +perhaps+
>}>>science will +find+ a way to +bring the dead back to life+........
>}>>this is playing on the same crud cults have played on for centuries.
>}>>Taking advantage of the poor and about to be dead. Don't give them
>}>>hope of an afterlife...... give them hope of anotherlife. Bull.
>}>>F) (just checking to see if you're still awake) Cryonics is science
>}>>being used as a replacement for cult religion so scam artists can rule
>}>>the pulpit again.....
>Many scientificly accepting methods are based on extrapolation of data.
>Radioactive dating, for instance, takes the present rate of decay of
>certain isotopes of certain elements, assumes that it is a constant, and
>uses it to estimate the age of geological formations, fossils, and human
>artefacts.
Radioactive dating? Are we in the same thread here?
>If we look at what science as a whole has accomplished in just the last 50
>years, we can look at the rate of growth in our knowledge expertise and
>extrapolate about what we will be able to do in the future. Our knowledge,
>rather than increasing at a slow, constant speed, regularly doubles, and
>the time it takes to double is getting smaller and smaller. In the early
>40s putting a man on the moon, organ transplantation, nuclear power plants,
>a computer that will fit into a single room, and genetic engineering were
>science-fiction. Now they are science fact. Don't you think it's rather
>myopic to think you know for a fact what science will *not* be able to
>accomplish in another 50 years? You sound like naysayers of the past, such
>as the man who said that if God had meant Man to fly, he would have given
>him wings.
Good grief. Look at cars. 50 years ago it was 30 MPG then it was 10MPG
and now its 30MPG again, I guess from your point of view cars will be
getting 90MPG by years end. Oh and what about that disgusting
reference to science fiction? There is science fiction and then there
is science. Just because a writer (Verne for example) foretold of
things that would become science fact does not relate one to the
other.
And what is wrong with the "given him wings" statement? Man was not
meant to fly. But man enters a machine that was meant to fly. So man
can ride the machine. Man still can not fly. Are you getting any of
this? I doubt it. It is impossible to refute belief with logic. It
takes logic to be logical and oft times beliefs are not.
>Ray Bradbury remembers being at a party one night and talking to people who
>scoffed at the idea of putting a man on the moon. He took down their phone
>numbers and on the night of the landing, many years later, he called each
>of them up and said "Stupid Son of Bitch!" Unfortunately, you are unlikely
>to hear these words from any revived cryonicist, for you will in all
>likelihood be a pile of bones or ashes by that time.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Are you by chance waiting for the great rapture
too? Perhaps you believe that since the ancient Egyptians believed in
the same hogwash you do that the only thing wrong with their
immortality attempt was the lack of proper cooling facilities? What
the hell is the difference between wrapping a dead body in linen and
wrapping it in liquid nitrogen? Temperature. THAT IS ALL. In linen,
the preservatives keep the body somewhat like it was but not at all
potential to be alive again. Unless you've been watching Jurassic Park
too much to believe the explanation given in it regarding Chaos Theory
was at all correct.
>}>>G) Freeze an organ and the organ will be damaged. COOL it and it will
>}>>be preserved. Now.... freeze a head and hope it will grow another body
>}>>or perhaps be put on another body or perhaps, who knows what else is
>}>>told to the poor and bewildered rich folk who can't take it with them
>}>>so they opt to leave them with it.......but you know something?
>}>>A scam is a scam is a scam. The sad part is that many otherwise
>}>>intelligent people will fall for a deception not because they KNOW it
>}>>to be a possibility but because it supports their HOPES.
>Now this isn't a very charitable reconstruction of the cryonicst's
>argument. Freeze a head and hope it will grown another body indeed.
You've not been paying attention. There are quite a few heads in cold
storage. Its cheaper that way.
>The problem isn't with freezing per se, but with the formation of ice
>crystals on the outside of the cell, causing an osmotic imbalence and cell
>dehydration; you don't have these problems with you freeze small groups of
>cells. This is a particular, defined scientific problem. There is every
>reason to expect a breakthrough some time in the future to solve it with
>cryoprotectants which prevnt the formation of ice and are not toxic to the
>brain or eventually with molecular nanotechnology.
There we go again. When the scientific breakthrough occurs that will
transform an ice crystal to be a rounded edge blunt ended crystal
there might be hope to THAW out a decent cadaver for study. BUT THAT
IS ALL.
One more thing on this: that would mean that the solution will have
been TOO LATE for all those poor people who opted for cryonics before
science was ready for them to die. Too bad. But oh my gosh, don't tell
anybody that now. The cryonics people may go out of business. And that
would mean that all the crap so far has been felonious desecration of
a cadaver. Illegal in all 50 states in this country.
>}>>Fire away!
>Direct hit. You seem to be taking on water--I'd suggest you abandon ship
>while there's still time ;-)
What? And miss comments like the ones that have been put forth in this
thread? Never never. Unless of course time is more important than
idiotic argument.
But I"m getting such a kick at watching the lame excuses for
supporting the refusal to wake up that I'm too tempted to watch more.
It is true you know, one can not tell another they have been asleep
until they wake up.
> Life is something I cherish. I will not
>}toy with it. I will not proclaim that I can somehow win over it. Life
>}ends. And when it does there is nothing anyone can do about it.
>}Holding out hope for a scientific maybe is absolutely ridiculous in
>}the light that when the life is gone, son, it is gone.
>Taking a rational gamble when there is no alternative is not ridiculous.
>Even if the odds are bad, it's still the only alternative.If you really
>"cherish" life as you claim, you'd be interested.
I am interested. In any form of deception. In any form of ridiculous
hope that replaces reality. In any form of argument that uses attack
on the individual instead of scientific argument. Its a wonder.
> I find more
>}credence in an afterlife potential in a spiritual manner than I do in
>}a physical manner. I can not prove that a spirit life is not me.
>This say something about your ability to rationally evaluate evidence. You
>imply cryonicist naive and gullible and yet you lend credence to an
>invisible force within you that lives after your body dies simply because
>you can't *disprove* it?? Why aren't you as charitable with cryonicts?
Are you alive? I presume so. So now... die. Are you alive? If you were
you would not be dead. So if you are dead, can you be alive again?
THINK! Use that stuff clogging the cavity and evaluate things on
rationality not on 'since science has come so far it can not be
stopped' hogwash. Careful or you might wind up living the hollywood
lifestlye as well as beliveing in myth as well as believing in
illusions. Beam me up scotty.
> I can
>}prove that a physical life is not alive when it is dead.
>This sentence is a semantic mess.
Thought someone would have a problem with that. THINK!
>On certain criterions of alive and dead
>you can prove an organism is one or the other, but you can not prove that
>once an arganism is dead that it cannot be revived unless you have some
>evidence to support this claim. Your statement above appears to be similar
>in form to the statement, "I can prove a bachelor can not be married."
No it isn't. You're grabbing for straws.
>It
>is true by definition that a bachelor is not married. But if a particular
>person is a bachelor at one time, this doesn't mean he can never be married
>at some future time. You'd need some evidence to show why he can never be
>married, such as that he is an incredible bore no woman would tolerate, or
>is gay (and committed to living in a place where there are no gay
>marriages), etc.
Oh, come now. If you wish to play logic associations use a better
analogy. One more close to the issue. One that has relevance.
How about this one: Put a ball in a box. Drop the box and let the ball
fall out. Now... is the ball in the box? Can you undrop the box and
put the ball back inside? Can you somehow make a new ball to replace
the older ball? Will it be the same ball? Will the box be uncrushed?
Come now.
> But
>}an animate matter construct can be dead, it just can not be alive
>}again. The matter does not cease to exist the life does.
>Again, you seem to have an unscientific definiton of "life." Life is a
>process. It can be arrested and restarted in a laboratory in animals. It
>can be brought back to drowning victims or people who have had heart
>attacks with CPR.
Unscientific definition? I have not defined life. I only assert that
you have not either. And what you have stated has been done.
Frankenstein. Remember the book? It was as stupid an idea then as it
is now. But you'll fall back to it. The New Prometheous indeed.
>}I hate to break the news to you but death is not a choice. Face it.
>}YOU are going to die and nothing you can do will change that. Nothing
>}you can do, nor pay for, can bring you back in a physical body when
>}there is no life inside it.
>Most of your "criticism" seems to consist of this kind of grandstanding and
>naysaying. Making strong assertions is not a substitute for evidence and
>argument. And you have this funny idea about what "life" is. Does the word
>"homonculus" mean anything to you?
You can't face it can you? You have this funny idea about what life is
and think you can control it. Perception does tend to cause
discussions to imply let not what was meant but what was intended
which of course the oberver can only guess about.
>}But far be it for me, or any other attempt at logic to stand in the
>}way of a person's hope. One can place hope in the position of
>}potential or one can place hope in the position of control. If you can
>}control it then it is not hope. It is hype.
>The fact that one *hopes* for x does is make the belief that x will occur
>irrational or thereby render x implausible. Here is a famous
>counter-example to this kind of argument brought against Feuerbach: I am
>ill and experiencing a night of pain. I hope for dawn to come at which time
>I know my pain will be over. The fact that I *hope* for the dawn is not
>proof that dawn will not come.
No it isn't but the assumption that a night of pain will end with dawn
is. So the argument is ridiculous.
> Once that power source is removed from the living structure
>}it is gone. You, nor anyone else, can turn it back on when IT IS NOT
>}THERE to be turned on.
>Here's that "life as invisible power source" belief again.
My point was this: whats the difference? I hold one belief. You hold
another. Mine is based on potential. Your's is based on potential.
Mine can not be disproven, nor proven. I do not proclaim that it ever
will. You , on the other hand proclaim a belief in science will
eventually prove your belief and that is the ONLY reason you believe
in it. Pretty lame if you ask me.
>}One can not change reality to fit one's hopes. One can change one's
>}hopes to fit reality. But there is no money in it.
>There's lots of money in administering chemotherapy, bone marrow
>transplants, and brain surgery, but it doesn't follow that these treatments
>never help anyone.
Money is not the problem. Nice try at spinning the concept though. All
of the above and many more to come are administered on living tissue.
Seems to be a major arguement as to what is life. You may believe what
you wish. As may I. There is no use in trying to change a belief. You
have faith in science. I know science to be a concept of man. So you
have faith in man. Prove one time where that is to be justified. And
don't digress to listings of great achievements. All is relative.
Lee Kent Hempfling...................|lkh@cei.net
chairman, ceo........................|http://www.aston.ac.uk/~batong/Neutronics/
Neutronics Technologies Corporation..|West Midlands, UK; Arkansas, USA.
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 21:23:40 GMT
In article , sassociation@worldbank.org (Gene C. Miller) writes:
>In article , meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
>
>> But, I also have concern for truth
>> and honesty. And honesty in science means to me "never pretend to
>> know more than you do".
>
>You've said earlier that science does not concern itself with Truth. How
>do you distinguish between the truth that you concern yourself with and
>the Truth that science does not concern itself with?...Gene
Simple. Truth (capitalized) stands for an ultimate, eternal Truth,
the one about "how things really are". Science doesn't claim being in
possession of such Truth, not even being able ever to reach it. In
fact, we're aware that even if we happen to stumble on it, we won't be
able to prove that this is IT.
The truth (lower case) that science deals with is a way more down to
earth, pragmatic thing. It is the truth as we see it, based on the
evidence available so far. There is nothing ultimate or eternal about
it, we know that with time it'll keep getting modified, updated and
changed. It is practical.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: How Much Math? (Was: Re: How much to invest in such a writer?)
From: david.jensen@mpcug.com (David Jensen)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 21:38:29 GMT
On 11 Nov 1996 22:50:48 GMT, jti@isleta.santafe.edu (Jeff Inman) wrote:
>[Meron says: "this is a science group"]
>
>moggin@nando.net (moggin) writes:
>
>: No, it's a group about books, a group about evolution,
>: a group about post-modernism, a group about...whatever sci.
>: skeptic is about [...]
>
>sci.skeptic is about how everybody that isn't a physicist is an asshole.
>
>--
>"But among those whom this story reached were also the woman's in-laws,
> and they decided, without telling her a word, to find this angel and
> to see if he knew how to fly ..."
Now, I think that sci.physics isn't coomonly found in this crosspost
list: alt.postmodern, talk.origins, sci.skeptic, ec.arts.books,
sci.physics
But, even so, why are these others so often spammed together. Sometimes
sci.skeptic gets a pass, but pomo, rab and t.o. seem tied
incomprehensibly together.
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 20:39:14 GMT
In article , moggin@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:
>
>lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com (-Mammel,L.H.):
>
>>He also supplies the famous quote where Newton calls action-
>>at-a-distance,
>
>> ... so great an absurdity that I believe no man,
>> who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty
>> of thinking, can ever fall into it."
>
> Right; that's from the first edition of the _Opticks_. And as I've said
>no more than four separate times, at the max, it's true that Newton was,
>especially at that time, committed to the philosophy of mechanism --
>which did nothing to prevent him from holding other views, as well.
In short, we shouldn't consider Newton's views, as expressed by him,
to be relevant when discussing Newton's views :-)
> As
>I shouldn't have to point out, introducing the notion of gravitas in the
>_Principia_ would be enough, by itself, to commit him to action-at-a-
>distance, even in the absence of any other considerations, since it's a
>force that exerts itself across space without any mechanism to account
>for its workings. As his contemporaries didn't hesitate to object.
You certainly shouldn't have to point it out, since it would've been a
total nonsense. Newton's law of gravity says that the planetary
motion is welll explained by a force proportional to the product of
the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
This is well supported by observations. And, that's important, it by
no means precludes the existance of an underlying, deeper mechanism,
just pleads ignorance of such (as Newton explicitly stated). As I've
mentioned (so many times that even I'm getting bored with it) physics
is pragmatic and when you've something that works, you use it
regardless of whether it makes sense to you or not. The approach of
rejecting something that's supported by observations because it
disagrees with our philosophical position wouldn't get us very far
(though it sure will find lots of support among Galileo's opponents).
It's worth mentioning that the electrostatic force (between two
charges) is given by a formula identical to the one for Newtonian
gravity. So, is it "an action from a distance". No, since we know
knowadays that it is explained by photon exchange where all the
interactions are local (but it certainly wasn't known at the time
people started using Coulomb's law). So there is no contradiction
between something appearing as an action at a distance and the
existance of an underlying local mechanism.
These are technicalities, though. What is important to understand is
that the adoption of a physical law in this or other form in no way
constitutes an acceptance of this or other philosophical principle.
It just constitutes a recognition that said law fits well with
available experimental evidence. In physics evidence is king, not
philosophical ideas.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: Tips For A Roach Free Apartment.
From: Mbillik@cris.com (Melvin Billik)
Date: 14 Nov 1996 22:11:47 GMT
David Kaufman (davk@netcom.com) wrote:
:
:
: Tips For A Roach Free Apartment.
: --------------------------------
:
: Apartments can be roach free, until one day the wrong
: neighbor moves next door or a current neighbor gets
: careless. Below are ways to eliminate roaches completely.
:
: Seal Roach Routes:
: ------------------
:
: When roaches walk in under the front door, 2 inch wide
: plastic tape (like duct tape) can build a seal under and
: onto the door. The seal can be built up in layers until the
: gaps are paper thin. Plastic straws may be taped over to
: fill gaps but aren't necessary.
:
: Also check the space seal at the side and top of the
: front door. How many pages of stacked paper can be pushed
: into the apartment at once? Here (if needed) taped over
: plastic straws may be helpful in creating a tight seal.
:
: In spring or summer, roaches can walk in through
: windows from roach infested neighboring apartments. Two inch
: wide transparent tape can seal windows or screens if they
: are a roach access route.
:
: Taping can also be done over any existing cracks at
: points of access to the apartment for TV cable, phones lines
: and water, heat, gas or electrical pipes.
:
: Mechanically Remove Roaches:
: ----------------------------
:
: Once an apartment is sealed from roach access, an
: ongoing effort to remove or crush roaches will eventually
: eliminate the entire roach population. All it takes is some
: effort each day to eliminate some of the roaches from the
: apartment.
:
: For example, whenever the light is put on during the
: night, whether on entering the apartment, or on going to the
: bathroom, do it carefully without wind or noise and be ready
: to act to catch or crush roaches where they congregate.
:
: Always be ready to act by having coarse paper towels
: folded into quarters as a convenient crushing tool, or a
: transparent plastic container with seals, if catching them.
:
: Starve and Poison Roaches:
: --------------------------
:
: Keep a clean dry apartment. Cover and remove garbage.
: Wipe up water. Then roaches can be caught looking for water
: or food. Roach motels can locate and catch roaches also.
:
: Boric acid powder sprinkled careful against the walls
: where roaches walk is highly effective for complete roach
: elimination. But it may take a month or two. Boric acid is a
: cumulative poison, so don't breath it in or get it on cuts.
: Roaches that walk in it will lick their feet and poison
: themselves. Those with pets should not use this method.
:
: Closed container poisons can aid also toward a roach
: free apartment. Where there is a will, there is a way.
: ------------------------------------------------------------
: By David Kaufman, Nov. 12, 1996. Share this leaflet freely.
:
: Be Good, Do Good, Be One, and Then Go Jolly.
: What else is there to do?
:
:
: --
: davk@netcom.com
David:
How wonderful of you to post this useful information. That's exactly why
one must visit the 30-40 groups you just spammed your assinine note, so
maybe they could read it again and again and ...
Mel
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: glong@hpopv2.cern.ch (Gordon Long)
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 22:00:56 GMT
wrote:
>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>
>>Perhaps you should read the other threads more carefully; as far as I can
>>see, both Richard Harter and Mati Meron acknowledged that Derrida's
>>remark makes fine sense within the context of his talk (which you may or
>>may not have read -- we're still waiting for a clear statement on this
>>matter); therefore, you're hypothesis above is falsified if you accept
>>RH's and MM's reason to be sufficient.
>>
>Well, not quite. I'm not sure what Richard's position was, as for
>myself I said that I'm not in a position to judge whether it makes
>sense since I don't know yet what it was supposed to mean. What we
>both agreed on (I think) is that it should not be judged as statement
>about science but rather as statement about thoughts inspired by
>science.
>
>So, we've an agreement regarding the context within which the
>statement should be judged, as well as the criteria which apply. The
>court is set, the procedure agreed upon, what's needed now is a
>translation of the defendant statement into common talk.
>
After browsing this group, I'm sort of curious about that too. I've
seen people try to explain the terms "center", "game", and "play" as
Derrida uses them, but I still can't fully make sense of the remark.
Since I haven't seen anyone else try to translate it, I'll give it a
shot. The best (and most charitable) translation I can come up with is:
The Einsteinian constant cannot be used as a basis of discussions
about the nature of physical reality. In other words, if you're
discussing the nature of reality, you can't use this constant as
the starting point (or anchor, or whatever word you want to
substitute for 'center') for all such discussion. Also, if you
want to discuss anything involving this constant, then by
definition you must be talking about the nature of reality. So
this constant, in a sense, defines or selects the nature of the
discussion.
I don't know whether this is the correct interpretation. I do think
it's wrong, except in the trivial sense; in any case, it doesn't say
anything important about science or about physical reality. This
constant (which I assume is the cosmological constant, although I'm not
sure about that) is simply a parameter in a certain class of theories. It
is not the best way to define the nature of a discussion; you can talk
about physics or physical reality without ever referring (implicitly or
explicitly) to this constant. If instead you restrict discussion to the
class of theories that use this parameter, then by definition you are
using this constant as a center.
There is also another important point that seems to be overlooked, and
that is the distinction between theory and physical reality. Theories
(attempt to) describe reality, but they are not reality itself. If you
want to say anything meaningful about this cosmological constant, you
have to keep this distinction in mind.
There are two senses in which to talk about this constant: the sense
in which it is "real", and the sense in which it isn't. It isn't "real"
in the sense that it is just a parameter of a theory; you could have all
kinds of theories, all completely equivalent, some with the constant and
some without it. Since the theories are equilvalent, you can't pick one
and claim that it's somehow more "real" than another. On the other hand,
the constant is "real" in the sense that, if you used a theory with the
constant, and this theory accurately described reality, then you can use
the constant to refer to that part of reality that it describes. In the
exchange between Hyppolites and Derrida, it is never clear to me which
sense they are using. (The problem with the second sense is, of course,
that no theory with a non-zero value for the cosmological constant has
ever been experimentally verified.)
- Gordon
--
#include
Gordon Long | email: Gordon.Long@cern.ch
CERN/PPE |
CH-1211 Geneva 23 (Switzerland) |
Subject: Re: what causes gravity? (remedial)
From: cbloom@mail.utexas.edu (Charles Bloom)
Date: 14 Nov 1996 22:29:09 GMT
[re-ordering]
>But it would also be helpful if someone could tell me if academicians do
>indeed describe gravity as a "property of matter" or (more distinctly) simply
>as a force between masses.
How do you define "matter"? Most people intuitively think of matter as
"that which is pulled around by gravity" ; We might be more precise and
say "matter" is that which has a non-zero rest-mass by the relativistic
definition; we can then define mass as m = p/v (which is the relativistic
moving mass, btw).
>It started with a simple statement by my son, namely that gravity is a
>"property of matter".
>
>That did not ring true, based on my ancient exposure to physics. Looking it
>up, I stumbled across a definition that describes gravity as a force between
>two masses. Would you call that a "property of matter"?
Actually, this isn't very accurate, but is correct. We must take
as a postulate :
Inertial Mass == Gravitational Mass (Einstein's favorite)
What is matter? That which has inertia; Thus "that which has gravity" ,
and so, yes, gravity is a property of matter.
However, without the link to momentum, you are in a logical loop : i.e.
gravity is a property of matter; gravity is defined to work on matter;
so how do I define matter? That which gravity works on? You need
momentum and the "equivalence postulate" to break the loop.
>That gave rise to the question: what causes this attraction?
This is unknown. Theories on this subject are currently under
debate (gravitons, space-time bending of relativity, etc.)
There is an interesting side-line to this :
it is known that self-resistance to fields (i.e. an electron interacting
with its own coulombic field) acts like inertial mass; i.e. causes a
resitance to change in velocity.
Therefore, by the (necessary) equivalence postulate, this self-resistance
to field must be proportional to gravitational attraction. The mechanism
by which an electron's interaction with a maxwell field creates a
gravitational field is as yet unknown, and may fall out of the Grand
Unification theories which will purportedly arrive some day soon.
--------------------------------------------
Charles Bloom cbloom@mail.utexas.edu
http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~cbloom/index.html
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck)
Date: 14 Nov 1996 22:17:13 GMT
Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
: >>>>>>>If I may quickly interfere here in my usual conciliatory voice:
: >>>>>>>I think that, yes, Zeleny is right: both Destruktion and deconstruction
: >>>>>>>have an etymological connection to destruction; he is right further in
: >>>>>>>claiming that Derrida and Heidegger are very attuned to implications
: >>>>>>>of this sort -- to deny that there is any link whatsoever strikes me
: >>>>>>>as problematic.
: >>>>>>I appreciate your interference, but calling Derrida's self-serving
: >>>>>>lie `problematic' is still, umm... "problematic" -- for reasons I
: >>>>>>suggested by my analogy with Jorg Haider. Do you seriously expect
: >>>>>>Derrida to remain morally unaffected by inheriting his critical
: >>>>>>methodology from a Nazi and sharing it with a Nazi collaborator?
: >>>>>Yes; as much as I don't accuse Aristotelians to be pro-slavery.
: >>>>Why ever not? Philosophers such as Bernard Williams in _Shame and
: >>>>Necessity_ -- have made THAT argument. What sort of superiority --
: >>>>and surely the intellectual variety could be ruled out right away --
: >>>>entitles you to dismiss them without consideration?
: >>>You says I haven't considered it? I'm familiar with the argument; it
: >>>doesn't interest me, and I think it's fallacious. Next thing you'll argue
: >>>that everybody who thinks Nietzsche is worthwhile will contract syphilis.
: >>No germ or poison can contaminate reason as much as the belief that some
: >>men are natural slaves.
: >So?
: So your hysterical analogy is quite worthless, as usual.
Barely established; commit yourself: are all people who respect
Aristotelian philosophy pro-slavery or not? If not, are all people who
respect Heidegger's philosophy pro-Nazi or not? If not, do you still have
a point?
: >>>I find much of Heidegger's approach to metaphysics problematic, and I
: >>>have no interest in constructing apologetic arguments about his
: >>>involvement with the Nazis -- yes, he was a Nazi, and, yes, part of his
: >>>philosophy reflects this or is at least connected to it. That does not
: >>>constitute a critique of his philosophical work yet; it certainly does
: >>>not constitute a critique of _Derrida's_ philosophical work. As you damn
: >>>well know.
: >Response?
: You know where to find my critique of Derrida's philosophical work.
No, I don't.
: Feel free to join in. In this thread I am exclusively addressing his
: moral failure. To recap:
: Derrida:
: "The word _d�construction_ ... has nothing to do with destruction."
Have you read Goldman's comments to which Derrida is addressing himself?
: Derrida:
: "Deconstruction ... is simply a question of ... being alert to the
: implications, to the historical sedimentation of the language which we
: use."
Precisely; and you have failed to establish what exactly the historical
sedimentation of Heidegger's _Destruktion_ would be here. In other words,
make a case for destructiveness.
: Gasch�:
: "The main concepts to which deconstruction can and must be retraced
: are those of _Abbau_ (dismantling) in the later work of Husserl and
: _Destruktion_ (destruction) in the early philosophy of Heidegger."
: Deconstructively speaking, we have a contradiction. Hence Derrida is
: lying, cqfd.
You are again trying to argue from Gasch'e's authority; by now, you
should have realized that it doesn't work very well.
: >>>>>>If so, what good is his alleged sensitivity to "historical
: >>>>>>sedimentation"?
: >>>>>It's good when it's subtle; your brand is indeed worthless.
: >>>>Subtlety is no substitute for truth.
: >>>It's a good approach to it, though.
: >>It is in no way superior to honest reason as an approach to truth.
: >Honesty and subtlety are not mutually exclusive; I consider your response
: >a non-response.
: You implied that my brand of deconstructing `d�construction' was
: worthless for want of subtlety. Consider your claim refuted by your
: own subsequent turn.
Hardly. You set up a dichotomy between honesty and subtlety; that's
pathetic. Apart from the fact that nothing you do in these threads is honest.
: >>>>>> Zeleny's problem is that he cannot distinguish between throwing a
: >>>>>>>bomb at a church and taking it apart piece by piece, lovingly, to see
: >>>>>>>how it is made. The latter does involve, to introduce a new term,
: >>>>>>>dismantling, and it is a destruction to the extent that any
: >>>>>>>interference with a structure is a destruction because it doesn't
: >>>>>>>leav its object unchanged.
: >>>>>>ANY interference with a structure is a destruction because it doesn't
: >>>>>>leave its object unchanged? Are you really implying that each time
: >>>>>>you eat your Wheaties or take your morning shit, read a newspaper or
: >>>>>>write your Usenet screed, you destroy your body or your mind, by dint
: >>>>>>of interfering therewith? Would you care to reconsider your claim
: >>>>>>after a leisurely walk through Liddell & Scott on metabole?
: Response?
I did respond to this; you quote my response below.
: >>>>>> At any
: >>>>>>rate, Heidegger dismantles the Spirit, Logos, and Reason, to replace
: >>>>>>them with -- WHAT?
: >>>>>Yes, I am -- which is precisely why your objection is so worthless;
: >>>>>deconstruction is destructive precisely to that degree --- that is, it
: >>>>>is destructive in such obvious and negligible ways that to point out
: >>>>>that it is destructive and trying to build your case on it bespeaks your
: >>>>>vindictive fantasies rather than any understanding of what is at stake.
: >>>>Half of my family was murdered by Heidegger's party comrades. What
: >>>>makes YOU so sure of your entitlement to the high moral ground in
: >>>>denouncing my "vindictive fantasies"? What have YOU got at stake?
: >>>Half of my family belongs to slavic Untermenschen; another part (a small
: >>>one) is gypsy; my husband is Jewish and my children according to
: >>>Antisemites the result of Rassenschande -- so what's your point?
: >>First tell me what entitles you to the high moral ground.
: >You introduced the terrain; you graze it. Since you introduces your
: >family history, I introduced mine -- but it's you who seems to think it's
: >relevant. Explain yourself.
: I introduced my family history to put in context my moral concerns,
: which you so charitably characterized as "vindictive fantasies."
Bullshit. You have given no evidence of "moral concerns" whatsoever;
being a relative of Nazi victims gives you no intellectual leverage. If
you have true concerns about a connection between deconstruction and
Nazism, establish such a connection.
As
: far as I am concerned, your ethnic provenance is irrelevant to moral
: standing -- but perhaps you feel differently. So answer the question
: already.
My ethnic provenance is as irrelevant as yours. Your question is
disingenuous; I do not claim moral high ground, I'm asking you for an
argument to sustain your moralisms.
: >>>>>"What does he replace them with?" -- Why, do you think philosophy is like
: >>>>>restocking the shelves in a supermarket? Oh, gee, these Wheaties seem
: >>>>>stale, let's put some Cheerios in instead? As soon as you stop asking
: >>>>>"what is" in favor of "what is it good for," you're in trouble. Get your
: >>>>>reassurances somewhere else -- Commentary would probably suit.
: >>>>What a jolly good show of non-partisan demagoguery. Now would you
: >>>>kindly point out an instance when I stopped asking "what is" in favor
: >>>>of "what is it good for"?
: >>>It's implied in your suggestion that critique should reshelve the
: >>>metaphysical storehouse.
: >>Non sequitur. Quidditative inquiry depends on the availability of its
: >>tools and subject matter alike, as surely as pragmatic concerns depend
: >>on an expectation of benefit.
: >So tell us what your point was in the dramatically capitalized "WHAT?"
: First you answer the question.
Which question is that?
Silke
